How Koramangala cab service providers woo tech savvy customers

From GPS and online bookings to mobile apps and customer care systems, cab service providers are giving customers a safe and hassle-free ride.

KORAMANGALA: Fed up of haggling with the notorious auto drivers, Koramangala's techies are now turning to cab services operating in Koramangala, which provide a better, and a safer service at reasonable rates. Most of them have a 24x7 customer care call centre.

Hiring a cab is becoming increasingly popular amongst techies. This makes it one of the fastest growing businesses in the city. New players are entering the market to cash in on this lucrative market. And every month, players claim, demand is rising between 40 percent and 100 percent.

WOOING TECHIES

Ola Cabs in Koramangala is one of the recent entrants, yet it has become pretty popular amongst smart phone users. Mumbai-based Ola Cabs was started by Bhavish Aggarwal and his fellow IIT Bombay alumni, Ankit Bhati in January last year. It is the first service to offer an app for Android, iPhone and web users. Through this app, one can book a cab, and track it on their mobile phone until it reaches them. Ola cabs also has an app for drivers, which acts as an in-car navigation and communication device.

According to data provided by Ola Cabs, the sector is valued at around $6 billion and is growing at close to 30 percent CAGR. The company already has a fleet of 2,000 cabs across two cities (Mumbai and Bangalore) and plan to expand to six Indian cities in a year's time. "Business growth and number of users both are marking a 100 percent month-on-month increase," says a delighted Bhavish. He also added that with more and more Indians taking to travelling by cabs, a big demand-supply gap is being created, which needs to be filled.

Another service, TaxiForSure.com, also started the same time around Ola Cabs. Founded by two IIM Ahmedabad alumni, Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, the portal has been operational since June 2011 enabling customers to place online and phone bookings in Bangalore. Two companies, Accel and Helion have invested in this venture.

The increasing spending power of people has set the cash registers ringing for Taxiforsure.com. "We have been growing at 40 percent per month," claims Radhakrishna. Savaari Car Rentals is another cab service that is flourishing in the area. Founded in 2006 by Gaurav Aggarwal, the company was able to get series A funding of Rs 5 crore from Inventus Capital Partners.

"The car rental industry in India is around Rs 17,000 crore and is growing at 15 percent annually. And we have been doing pretty well growing steadily on a monthly basis," informs Gaurav. He however, refuses to divulge any figures but adds that since its inception, Savaari has grown to a network of over 150 operators across 60 cities and has clocked an experience of around 8.5 lakh trip hours and 1 crore trip kms. At present, Savaari have more than 3,000 cars in their network across India and have 175 cars in Bangalore.

The demand peaks during the festive season as people look forward to go out for weekends getaways. "Bangalore has a lot of beautiful getaways. The demand increases by 80 to 90 percent," says Bhavish. Savaari mirrors the same growth, "We see our business volume double during festival days or long weekends," says Gaurav.

RADIO GAGA

The city has grown over black and yellow taxis. People now look for safe and clean cars. And that's why radio taxis have taken over. "Radio Cab service is not a new concept and has been present for quite some time. However, today we are witnessing a sea change in the way customers are opting for these services. With evolution in the technology there are now several ways cab companies can improve a customer's experience," says Bhavish, who is already using technologies like GPS, mobile apps and traffic updates.

Being based out of Koramangala has been a boon for them. "Since Koraman-gala is an IT hub, the IT professionals here earn well enough and can easily afford to rent cab and prefer booking them online," says Savaari's Gaurav adding that Savaari gets 10 percent of the bookings from Kormangala. Taxiforsure's Radhakrishna also finds IT professionals of Koramangala to be very tech-friendly, who would not mind paying a little extra for a safe and convenient ride. The company registers about 10-15 percent of its bookings from Koramangala.

Bhavish agrees: "Koramangala has people from all over India and abroad. They hesitate to give directions to the driver over phone. And that's where our mobile app come into the picture. One can get a cab without the hassles of dialling a call centre number and giving directions to the driver."

Another trend noticed by Bhavish is that the sector is getting more and more organised and professional with the entry of aggregators. "Today customers are looking for a very professional approach. A lot of unorganised players are thus, joining our platform and we can expect to see a sharp rise in the organised car rental sector in the near future," he points out.

MORE FOR LOCAL VENDORS

THE cab aggregators are letting a lot of small and medium car rental providers to scale-up their business. Savaari aggregates local vendors to provide services to their customers. "We maintain pretty high standards and not everyone can join our network. We use the local vendors as building blocks and have devised ways to ensure customer satisfaction," elaborates Gaurav Aggarwal.

Ola Cabs too helps small fleet operators of Bangalore and Mumbai. "We do not own or operate our own fleet, but aggregate small fleet operators and single vehicle owners. The inventory utilisation among small cab operators (who own one to three cabs) in India is an abysmal 40 percent to 50 percent," says Bhavish Aggarwal.

He adds, "Cab owners benefit from our network and technology platform. We also help them procure customers and enhance income through better inventory utilisation." On the industry growth, Taxiforsure's Radhakrishna concludes, "Cab service industry is going through a revolution of sorts with new players with different business models entering the fray. The company, which can win the hearts of the customers would emerge a winner."

However, Bangalore does not have any special cab service exclusively for and by women like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. But players this service too is on the cards.